Telangana MLC polls under MLA quota likely in October
Six seats in the Legislative Council under the MLAs quota have fallen vacant in June this year
HYDERABAD: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is bracing for upcoming MLC polls after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the schedule for Huzurabad Assembly bypoll on Tuesday.
Sources said the party leadership expects the ECI to issue MLC poll notification any time in October. Six seats in the Legislative Council under the MLAs quota have fallen vacant in June this year. However, the TRS has an absolute majority in the Legislative Assembly to bag all the six MLC seats comfortably.
Several senior TRS leaders who could not be accommodated in the state Cabinet and who could not get party tickets to contest MLA and MP elections in 2018 and 2019 and subsequent bypolls due to caste and other political factors are expecting MLC berths this time. TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao promised MLC seats to several such leaders from the 2018 Assembly polls till Nagarjunasagar bypoll in April this year.
Seats have fallen vacant on June 3 with the tenure of six TRS MLCs Gutha Sukender Reddy, Nethi Vidyasagar, Bodakunti Venkateswarlu, Kadiyam Srihari, Mohd Fareeduddin and Akula Lalitha coming to an end.
Normally, the ECI initiates the election process before the MLC seats fall vacant but due to the Covid second wave, the commission postponed these elections. The state government on July 31 told the ECI that it would not be appropriate to hold elections for MLC seats till the Covid cases subsided significantly and conditions became conducive to hold elections in state. This was in response to the ECI's letter sent on July 28 seeking its view on holding MLC polls.
The state government's opinion surprised political circles as there are just 119 MLAs, who are eligible to vote in these MLC polls. Moreover, the possibility of polling is remote because the TRS has an absolute majority in the Legislative Assembly and can win all six seats.
Opposition parties lack the strength even to field their candidates.
Out of 119 MLAs in the House, the TRS has 102 and its friendly party AIMIM has seven. Opposition Congress and BJP have just six and two members, respectively. With this, the TRS MLC candidates will be declared elected unanimously.
Despite this, the state government has decided against immediate MLC polls then.